Rest for the Wicked
by soldieroftroy
Summary: I'm tired, you say, mumbled around your tongue like it's too big for your mouth. (Very nondescript mention of suicide, equally nondescript mention of major character death. Not a feel-good story, for the record.) (That awkward when you've listed the wrong characters... It's Steve and Tony, fixed now...)


_I'm tired_, you say, mumbled around your tongue like it's too big for your mouth. It hurts like a knife to the diaphragm, choking off breath from my lungs and sapping out the warmth from my chest. I can feel ice already, wrapping around my fingers and creeping in. You yawn, curl into my side, and rest your head on my shoulder in that I-won't-even-ask-permission-because-I-expect-you-to-jump-before-I-know-I-want-you-to-jump manner you have. You're out like a light and I can breathe, shaking and rough, because I know you just mean that you're sleepy, that you would like a nap—that you would like a nap _now, thank you_, but it hurts all the same.

_I'm tired_, you say, gasped with eyes wider than anything I've ever seen, and I feel the blood you're choking on misting against my skin. It's enough to make me want to vomit, but instead I pull _just so_ on your suit until it comes free, like you taught me years ago, and seek out gash from the spear that's driven itself into your chest. The weapon has managed to punch a hole between two ribs so that the head nicked lung, and it's horrible and it's painful but I don't think it's fatal. I press hard, enough to make you grimace, and lean forward so my forehead's on your shoulder. I can't handle this.

_I'm tired_, you say, fingers lacing through mine with a gentle smile on your face. I know I'll never forget this moment, the light across your skin and the soft curve your lips make. _I'm tired of waiting around for perfect things to fall into my lap, so damn it, I'm pulling you down._ You keep going, and it sounds like angels and jaybirds and waterfalls, and I'm dazed until I feel metal (warmed by your hand, too extravagant but to hell if it doesn't just scream your name) encircling my finger and I manage to reciprocate before your lips crush against mine and my breath evaporates in my lungs. I can't think of anything except here, now, you, this, us, like if someone had asked something as simple as my first name my only response would've been a laughed echo of your voice saying _hell yes_. You've never been much for rituals and ceremony and tradition, I've known from the start.

_I'm tired_, you say, a whine that your eyes don't echo, panted out against my chest because you just can't find the strength to pull yourself upright just yet. You plant a kiss there and then grasp the fingers I had been combing through your hair to keep my hand still while you turn your head so you can plant another on my palm (I can feel the figurative flowers blooming in both places, drawing out the cold that never stops with the warmth of _you)_. You're always burning hot and I'm always freezing cold, so I imagine that my kisses spread across your skin pleasantly like frost forming on a window, until we're both covered in each other and perfectly comfortable, sleeping together (sleeping, not sex, just sleep, innocent and sweet and so much more than sex) like we've got all the time in the world to just be.

_I'm tired_, you say, and you've said it often enough that it doesn't quite stop my heart this time until I glance up and… and just break. You're smiling but your eyes shine with sorrow, like _I'm sorry_ and like _please stay _and like _goodbye _and like _I love you_ rolled into one, and I just can't handle this. _I know_, I choke out, and you close your eyes for a long while. You start to say something—something that sounds like your eyes look—so I silence you with a kiss that I know is bordering on bruising and try not to cry. I'm not doing too well, I think. _It'll be fine,_ you say, quiet and rough, with your fingers motionless in my hair. It won't, it damn well won't and you know as much, and you saying otherwise isn't helping (it kind of is), so I wish you'd just be quiet for once in your life (please don't stop talking, please never stop talking). _It's gonna be alright_, you say, except sitting upright is a struggle like gravity is working on you tenfold, and you gaspgaspgasp and still can't catch your breath, so I know it's not.

_I'm tired_, you say, _that's all. Just tired._ I feel your fingers tapping against my shoulder and wrap an arm around your waist, tight but not too much. Your arm falls across my shoulders in a way that's easy enough to pass as casual, but we both know that you don't have the strength to walk on your own anymore and you're too proud to let anyone help you so I carry your weight instead while you shuffle beside me. The others are waiting in the living room, unable to come into our room and see you like this, a dozen kinds of falling apart. It's easier to pretend out here with us nestled together on the couch.

_I'm tired_, you say, after the others leave. I thought you were asleep, but you're not—just conserving energy until we meet the ridiculously difficult task of walking back to our bedroom. You let me carry you after just a few steps this time, nuzzling my neck to make it seem like anything other than you not being strong enough. The bed is warm and inviting, which I know because you've taken to talking at it like it's a person who understands you. You sink against the pillows behind your head and close your eyes, mumbling out a demand that I climb in beside you immediately. I'm really awful at saying no to you.

_I'm tired_, you say, wheezing through the mask over your face. Your eyes burn into mine, glazed and resigned and uncomfortably without the armoured walls from the first time I met you. It's like a storm, ravaging through you and just sapping every bit of _you _away, replacing it with shadow-of-you instead. That's what you look like, shadow-of-your fingers resting limply across the plastic that's feeding shadow-of-your starved lungs. Your eyes are blinking a bit uneven, like they're stuck together with glue that had dried a bit on each side before they'd been joined and it's hard to pry them apart again. _Tired_, you say again, really struggling now. Your free hand is enclosed in both of mine, fingertips resting against my lips. I feel your fingers flex, then attempt to wrap around my left hand and pull weakly. I obligingly move my hand until it's rested against your cheek.

_I'm tired,_ I say, stuttering it through tears and chattering teeth. I thought I could do this, but I can't. Everything's changing, except for me. I'm still just like I was when I was cut out of the ice, like I was when I crawled out of that tube your father built. I haven't aged over a century and… and _I'm tired._ I'm tired, and I want to stop. I've wanted to stop for a long time now, but I couldn't—not while you and the others were still around.

Now you're not and they're leaves in the wind, and I'm tired. Everything is wrong about this time, but you were always around to bring a little sense to things (or, at least, make fun of me until I learned). I have nothing now, no friends and no family, with new legions of heroes to take over for me.

The rain feels like shards of glass in my skin, not entirely unlike the taste of metal on my tongue. The last thing I know is heat, white-hot, like kissing you for the first time and feeling some relief from the ice that's perpetually rushing through my very bones. They lower me down into the space beside yours a week and some after you, and no-one is much surprised. I don't know who chose my headstone or what they put on it, but I don't care.

We were tired, Tony, _damn_ _tired_. Now it's just time to rest.


End file.
